I am glad to read this article which poke around the idea of "Pixel Perfection", for me that is indeed time-wasted, and I don't know why there are lots of company keeps saying they want this kind of "Perfection".
But I do believe people care quality, what they did is comparing the quality with price, Netflix is a bad example since it's so cheap (compared to seeing movie or a show in theater). The viewer saw a bad movie they will just think, oh well, I don't care.
I think this article treat result as the resaon, company didn't incentivize the "Glue work" is not purely they don't want to and also "They don't know how to do that".
Ask ourselves, calculate one's efficiency is already hard, how to calculate one's effectiveness on other's efficiency. Just like author said.
> If individual employees are willing to lift their local team to 80% or 90% efficiency by burning their time on glue work, companies will take that free value
They take it for granted without really calculating the benefit. That is part of the reason why a small, gifted, and high-efficiency startup can operate and take over these giant company.